If you’re considering attending Great Wide Open 2016 we encourage you to read the information below. In addition, feel free to pass this along to your boss or supervisor that might need some persuading.

1. Corporate Open Source use and participation is now at an all time high, and has DOUBLED in the last 5 years. If your company doesn’t use or understand open source it’s going to be at a competitive disadvantage, period.

Seventy-eight percent (78%) said their companies run part or all of its operations on OSS and 66 percent said their company creates software for customers built on open source.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of companies currently participate in open source projects – up from 50 percent in 2014 – and over the next 2-3 years, 88 percent are expected to increase contributions to open source projects.

Open source has become the default approach for software with more than 66 percent saying they consider OSS before other options.

2. Great Wide Open = educational opportunity

The focus of the conference is on EDUCATION. If you attend the event you are guaranteed to learn something you can implement and utilize in your place of work or even at home. Continuing education for technology professionals should be extremely important as what is being used, and what can be used, changes constantly. And learning about new technologies, and meeting some of the people behind them, should be important as well. The educational value of Great Wide Open is tremendous.

3. The content is world-class

We work very hard to identify and cover the most important topics you need to know about and we regularly feature some of the top technologists in the world.

Wednesday, March 16 will feature 40 minute sessions on 10 tracks – the purpose is to provide an opportunity to learn a little about a lot. Attendees can gain knowledge about a variety of topics on just one track if they prefer to limit focus, or on multiple tracks.

Thursday, March 17 will feature 1.5 – 2.5 hour extended sessions/workshops. This is designed to give attendees an opportunity to learn a lot about fewer topics.

The tracks featured will include:

UI/UX/Design

Front-End Developer

Back-End Developer

DevOps

Cloud

Big Data

Business

Security

Community

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4. The networking is incredible

We feel it is incredibly important to meet thought leaders and other practitioners in the open technology field. Not only is it a great opportunity to share ideas and have some much needed fun, but it does something more important. In short, it improves your technology/industry IQ, which in turn makes you more knowledgeable, interesting, and ultimately more valuable to your team and employer. See how that works?

5. The value and ROI are tremendous

To keep it short and sweet, we challenge you to find a better value anywhere in the technology education/conference industry in the country. Early Bird registration costs just $75 for each day of the conference, and includes lunch and all programing and socials. That means 10 tracks of world-class content on Wednesday and additional world-class workshops on Thursday for just $75 each!! However, please be aware the cost increases February 20th. If you don’t register in time for Early Bird, no worries – the increased cost will still be an incredible value.

Again, we challenge you to find a better deal. Our goal is to make it possible for companies and organizations to bring a TEAM, not just send the lucky person who happens to draw the long straw.

Why Should You Attend Great Wide Open in 2016? Here’s some info to explain the value. Feel free to pass along.